Scott Jeffrey Reid

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This article is about the Conservative Party of Canada politician. For the press secretary to Paul Martin, see Scott Reid (political advisor).

Scott Jeffrey Reid (born January 25, 1964 in Hull, Quebec) is a Canadian politician. He has served in the Canadian House of Commons since 2000, and currently represents the Ontario riding of Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington as a member of the Conservative Party.

Contents

1 Early life and career
2 Author
3 Politician
4 Trivia
5 Table of offices held
6 External links
7 Electoral record
8 Notes and sources

Early life and career

Reid was born in Hull, Quebec. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and a Master of Arts degree in History from Carleton University in Ottawa, and is a respected authority on federalism and the Canadian constitution.^{[#endnote_degrees]} He was raised as a Unitarian, and remains a member of that faith.^{[#endnote_Unit]} His mother is Jewish, and for this reason he is sometimes listed as a Jewish politician.^{[#endnote_Jewish]}

Reid was an author, journalist and lecturer before entering political life. He worked in Port Townsend, Washington in 1990-1991, reported on events in Ottawa between 1992 and 1994 for the Alberta Report, and wrote opinion pieces for the National Post newspaper in 1999 and 2000. During the 1997-98 academic year, he was an instructor at the University of Western Sydney in Australia. Reid serves on the board of directors of Giant Tiger Stores Ltd., a family-owned business.

Author

Reid has written two books, Canada Remapped: How the Partition of Quebec Will Reshape the Nation (1992) and Lament for a Notion: The Life and Death of Canada's Bilingual Dream (1993). In his first book, Reid argues that the Canadian government should establish a clear legal framework to "govern the mechanics" of both provincial separation and the partition of a seceding province.^{[#endnote_mech]} While he does not endorse separation or partition, he argues that such a legal framework may be necessary to prevent the sectarian violence of Northern Ireland and the former Yugoslavia from surfacing in Canada, should Quebec voters choose to secede. He concludes the work by advising that a "legal, constitutional method" for provincial secession be entrenched in the Canadian Constitution.^{[#endnote_const]}

The title of Reid's second book, Lament for a Notion, is an allusion to George Grant's 1965 classic, Lament for a Nation. Reid asserts in this work that the existing system of official bilingualism in Canada has been an expensive failure, based on a utopian model developed by former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau rather than on what Reid suggests is the more practical model of "territorial bilingualism", proposed by the 1963-1970 Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (B&B Commission). He also argues that the existing system of bilingualism costs the Canadian economy four billion dollars every year to sustain.^{[#endnote_cost]}

Under Reid's model of territorial bilingualism, official language services would be extended only to those "relatively limited areas" of the country where "French or English is the language of the local majority or a strong local minority, but not of the provincial majority." He argues that this approach involves "the smallest amount of disruption to individuals" of any proposed model of official bilingualism, and so describes it as the "most just" approach from a utilitarian point of view.^{[#endnote_Lament]}

Lament for a Notion received mixed reviews in the Canadian press. The Montreal Gazette singled it out for particularly harsh criticism, with reviewer George Tombs describing Reid's calculations on the cost of official bilingualism as arbitrary and unreliable.^{[#endnote_Gazette]} A separate review in the literary journal Books in Canada noted Reid's support for a voucher-based education system, and described his concept of justice as "whatever the marketplace provides".^{[#endnote_Books]}

Other reviews were more positive. Denis Smith wrote in the Toronto Star that Lament was a "hard-headed, fair and devastating account" of the existing system of official bilingualism, arguing that its recommendations were "sensible" and "very difficult to refute".^{[#endnote_Star]} The Calgary Herald described the book as “a remarkable study: Informed, provocative, even visionary.”^{[#endnote_Herald]}

Reid has also written for the American journal Liberty, and describes himself as more libertarian than conservative.^{[#endnote_lbt]}

Politician

Reid served as a constitutional adviser to Reform Party leader Preston Manning in the 1990s, and was a senior researcher for the Reform Party from 1994 to 1997. After the formation of the Canadian Alliance in 2000, he worked as a speechwriter and organizer in Stockwell Day's leadership campaign.^{[#endnote_Day]} In the same year, Reid criticized the Jean Chrétien government's Clarity Act legislation as failing to provide a clear framework for future referenda on Quebec separatism.^{[#endnote_Clarity]}

Reid was first elected to the Canadian House of Commons in the 2000 federal election as a member of the Canadian Alliance, narrowly defeating Liberal incumbent Ian Murray in the riding of Lanark—Carleton to become one of only two Alliance representatives from Ontario. He was appointed as his party’s critic for Intergovernmental Affairs (including official languages) and served in 2001-02 as the vice-chair of the Standing Joint Committee of the House of Commons and Senate on Official Languages.

Reid was Stephen Harper's primary Ontario organizer in 2002, in Harper's successful challenge against Stockwell Day for the Alliance leadership.^{[#endnote_Harper]} The following year, he was appointed as a lead negotiator for the Alliance in merger talks with the Progressive Conservative Party. These talks led to the creation of the Conservative Party of Canada.^{[#endnote_merger]}

Early in the 2004 election campaign, Reid sparked a national controversy by re-asserting his view that official bilingualism is too broadly applied in Canada, and should be reviewed by the House of Commons and Senate Standing Committees on Official Languages.^{[#endnote_biling]} He was forced to resign his critic position for official languages the following day, and clarified that his views did not represent official party policy. The controversy did not hurt Reid's chances for re-election: he defeated Liberal incumbent Larry McCormick by over 10,000 votes in the redistributed riding of Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington.

The Liberal Party won a minority government in the 2004 election, and Reid served in the 38th Canadian parliament as a member of the Official Opposition. After the election, he was named as his party’s critic for Democratic Reform and for Fednor (Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario).

Reid holds a combination of civil libertarian and socially conservative views on some issues. He is pro-life, but also opposes capital punishment.^{[#endnote_socon]} In 2001, Reid was one of four Canadian Alliance MPs to break party ranks and vote against the Anti-Terrorism Act, arguing that the law violated traditional civil liberties and should be time-limited by a "Sunset Clause". He voted against the federal government's same-sex marriage legislation in 2005 after polling his constituents on the issue, arguing that the bill infringed upon religious rights.^{[#endnote_ssm]}

During his first two terms as an MP, Reid became closely associated with efforts to end the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in the People's Republic of China. A motion (M-236) drafted by Reid, which called upon Prime Minister Jean Chrétien to raise the issue of thirteen imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners with close family ties to Canada, was unanimously adopted by the House of Commons on October 24, 2002. This action has been credited with causing the release of some of the prisoners and their subsequent emigration to Canada. Despite Reid's efforts, the Canadian immigration department declined to admit Mingli Lin, a prisoner who was named in Motion M-236, and Lin was re-arrested in 2005.^{[#endnote_FG]}

Reid was re-elected in the 2006 federal election, as the Conservatives won a minority government. He now serves as deputy government House Leader.

Trivia

Reid was the only vegetarian member of the Canadian Alliance caucus elected in 2000.^{[#endnote_veg]}

Table of offices held

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External links

[Scott Reid's Homepage]

[How'd They Vote?]

Electoral record

2006 federal election: Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington
Party	Candidate	Votes	%	Expenditures
Conservative	(x)Scott Reid	30,367	51.07	\|- \|bgcolor="lightcoral"\|	Liberal	Geoff Turner	14,709	24.74	\|- \|bgcolor="sandybrown"\|	New Democratic Party	Helen Forsey	9,604	16.15	\|- \|bgcolor="yellowgreen"\|	Green	Mike Nickerson	3,115	5.24	\|- \|bgcolor="#9999FF"\|	Progressive Canadian	Jeffrey Bogaerts	735	1.24	\|- \|bgcolor="tan"\|	Marijuana	Ernest Rathwell	501	0.84	\|- \|bgcolor="powderblue"\|	Canadian Action	Jerry Ackerman	429	0.72
Total valid votes	59,460	100.00
Total rejected ballots	217
Turnout	59,677

All electoral information is taken from Elections Canada. Italicized expenditures refer to submitted totals, and are presented when the final reviewed totals are not available.

Notes and sources

↑ CBC Canada Votes 2006, Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington, Scott Reid profile. [link]
↑ Edited Hansard, Canadian House of Commons, 28 June 2005. [link]
↑ Ezra Levant, "Losing the monopoly on Jewish voters", National Post, 6 July 2004, A13. Levant described Reid as the only Jewish Conservative MP elected in 2004.
↑ Scott Reid, Canada Remapped, (Vancouver: Pulp Press), 1992, pp. 1-6. The quoted phrase is taken from page five.
↑ Reid, CR, p. 147.
↑ Ron Eade, "Bilingualism policies under attack", Toronto Star, 11 August 1995, A19.
↑ Scott Reid, Lament for a Notion, (Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press), 1993, pp. 27, 33-35.
↑ George Tombs, "Minorities sold short in anti-bilingualism book", Montreal Gazette, 19 February 1994, I2.
↑ "Lament for a notion" (review), Books in Canada, April 1994, p. 28. Reid's endorsement of voucher-based education can be found in Reid, LfaN, pp. 215-217.
↑ Denis Smith, "Guidance through the coming darkness", Toronto Star, 14 May 1994, L16.
↑ Ken McGoogan, “Overhaul urged for bilingualism”, Calgary Herald, 22 January, 1994, D8.
↑ Leonard Stern, "Scott Reid stands to become a tiger of the political right in Parliament", Ottawa Citizen, 18 February 2001, C6.
↑ Jane Taber, "Stockwell Day's `young fogeys'", Ottawa Citizen, 3 July 2000, A4.
↑ Scott Reid, "Comment", National Post, 22 February 2000, A20.
↑ Tonda McCharles, "Harper says he might run in Ontario first", Toronto Star, 26 February 2002, A08.
↑ Sean Gordon, CanWest News wirefeed, 6 October 2003, p. 1.
↑ Jack Aubry, "The truth about the bilingualism gaffe bring out", Vancouver Sun, 29 May 2004, A4.
↑ Randy Boswell, "The Alliance's `great right hope'", Ottawa Citizen, 1 November 2000, A6.
↑ Edited Hansard, Canadian House of Commons, 28 June 2005. [link]
↑ "Reid calls on Paul Martin to stand up for human right in China", Conservative Party press release, 1 September 2005. [link]
↑ Stern, "Scott Reid stands", C6.

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